This idea doesn't directly fit into the goals of the (Green-blue archetype), but I find it compelling enough that I wanted to create it anyway. If I don't use it in the Code Geass set I could see moving it off to Cards With No Home. It's a classic "fuse something colour A does with something colour B does" gold card like Zhur-Taa Druid or Steward of Valeron (or sortof Samite Archer), but I've not seen these two specific effects combined on the same card before. Yet they're the classic "activated ability on a small green creature" plus "activated ability on a small blue creature". What do you think?

Card draw in a mana ability? shudder

Yeah. I was going to comment that when I first saw the card. But then I couldn't really figure out how that would be broken (except in very, very corner cases.)

It's not like Chromatic Sphere broke anything. It was just cleaner as Chromatic Star. I suppose the worst thing that would happen is occasional rules violations from people who didn't know better. Which, considering the amount of people who try to cast spells against a blue deck in response to card draw... yeah, I guess that's kind of icky.

It doesn't break anything (except Panglacial Wurm, not that anyone plays that (I do)), but it's the fact that you can draw cards at essentially any time without people being able to respond, unlike basically every other effect in the game, that bothers me. See how they went out of their way to avoid that with Zhur-Taa Druid.

Huh. Forgot about the Druid. I was going to suggest that but wasn't sure if it was just too clunky. Guess it's not.

Well, but see also Selvala, Explorer Returned. That makes everyone draw cards during a mana ability. There was some outcry about that to Matt Tabak, rules manager at the time, to which he responded in his characteristic way with "Yes, we were aware of the consequences. No, it doesn't break anything."

But an alternative to this would be to make it not a mana ability: "Target player draws a card, discards a card, then adds to their mana pool."

(Edit 3 years later: Man, did I really think Selvala was okay? She's really not. That card just breaks rules all over the place.)

This is not a rules issue, it is a design issue. You want to word your cards in a way that not only works, but also works in a way that is intuitive and consistent with other effects.

Mana abilities with side effects don't do that. Even though the rules allow Selvala to "work" it doesn't "work well". People complained to the wrong person, but they were right to complain.

To be honest, I think making it not a mana ability is worse. Some players understand that mana abilities can't be interrupted. Those players that don't have some ven diagram crossover with people that are least likely to care.

An even more select group, though, knows that targeting disrupts mana abilities. And they would end up in vicious fights with the people who don't know that (or with the people that heard this isn't a mana ability, but don't know why.)

Lol at your comment edit